With Syracuse’s (4-7, 2-5 Atlantic Coast) final game of the regular season against Pittsburgh (7-4, 4-3) coming Saturday at 12:30 p.m. in Pittsburgh, the Orange needs some help to make a bowl game.

Here’s a step-by-step path for SU to make one:

1. Syracuse MUST beat Pittsburgh.

The Orange can’t make a bowl at 4-8, but it can at 5-7. To make the rest of this list possible, it must win Saturday at Heinz Field. With Zack Mahoney likely starting at quarterback, SU’s odds aren’t terrific. Betting lines started at the beginning of the week with the Orange as 23.5-point underdogs.

2. There are 15 remaining bowl spots. Those can’t be filled when games finish up early Sunday morning.

Currently, there’s exactly 13 five-win teams playing Saturday. Syracuse needs fewer than 15 to qualify for a bowl, forcing bowl games to choose from 5-7 teams to fill the remaining few spots of the 80 in total.

Here’s a list of the five-win teams:

Five-win team (future opponents)

Southern Methodist (vs. Navy)

Boston College (at Wake Forest)

Texas (vs. TCU)

Indiana (vs. Purdue)

Maryland (vs. Rutgers)

Northwestern (vs. Illinois)

Texas San Antonio (vs. Charlotte)

North Texas (at Texas El Paso)

Arizona State (at Arizona)

Vanderbilt (vs. Tennessee)

Ole Miss (vs. Mississippi State)

Hawaii (vs. Massachusetts)

South Alabama (at Idaho, vs. New Mexico State)

SMU, Boston College and Vanderbilt all play teams who have already become bowl eligible. If each team loses, they each become 5-7.

One team not on this list, Army, is 6-5, but hasn’t qualified because it has two wins over FCS opponents. It faces Navy on Dec. 10, and a win would make Army bowl eligible. In the case that not enough teams get to six wins, Army would be considered ahead of all five-win teams.

Hawaii plays 13 games in 2016 and is currently 5-7. A win gives it precedence over 5-7 teams, but doesn’t make the Rainbow Warriors bowl eligible. A loss eliminates them from bowl contention. They play 2-9 Massachusetts on Saturday at 11 p.m.

3. Syracuse’s academic progress rate has to rank as one of the top few 5-7 teams.

Among the teams with five wins, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, North Texas, Boston College, Indiana and Maryland are all ranked ahead of Syracuse in terms of APR. Two four-win teams — Duke and Notre Dame — also have higher APR scores than the Orange. Each team with five wins will get in ahead of Syracuse with a win or loss while the four-win teams each needs a win to then go head-to-head in APR score with Syracuse.

Duke faces Miami (7-4) in Florida and Notre Dame has to travel to the Los Angeles Coliseum to face No. 12 USC (8-3).

Assuming all 5-6 teams win or lose as expected, Indiana, Maryland, Northwestern, UTSA, UNT, Arizona State, Ole Miss, TCU and South Alabama (at 5-5 the Jaguars face 6-4 Idaho and 3-7 New Mexico to finish the season) should all get in with six wins.

After those nine teams, Army would qualify and Hawaii would also qualify with a win over Massachusetts. B.C. and Vanderbilt then would be the top two teams in terms of APR. Assuming Syracuse beats Pittsburgh, which is a relatively big assumption, it would be the next team in as long as both Duke and Notre Dame lose. The Orange could still have one of those two teams win and get in.

Published on November 25, 2016 at 12:39 pm

Contact Chris: cjlibona@syr.edu | @ChrisLibonati